Toronto Company Aims to Ensure Your Phone Never Dies at a Festival or Night Out Again

You’re at an all-day music festival, you’ve been Snapchatting for hours, you’re phone is taking triple the amount of time to upload anything because there are so many people in one spot – THEN IT DIES. You’ve either got your charging cord handy and it’s time to ask the bar/food vendors if they have an outlet free to plug in – OR – you’re out of luck with a dead phone for the rest of the day. A new Toronto-based company wants to make sure this scenario doesn’t happen to you ever again.

Meet 1UP Chargers, a Canadian brand with ambitions to take mobile chargers beyond your daily routine and into the festival/club circuit. “I came up with the idea while sitting on the subway on my way to a Raptors game,” says Nano Khnano, owner of 1Up. His phone was dead and he wished he had something small and portable to provide his device with some juice so he could share some photos and videos to social media from the arena. Nano sentiments with anyone that runs into daily troubles because of the world’s current reliance on smartphones. “Nowadays you require your phone for so many different things, such as; hailing an Uber, getting ahold of a friend or using the tap feature to pay for something if you loose your wallet, I’ve been there.”

1UP’s next goal is to expose the Canadian festival market to these disposable chargers, a community that strives to keep their phone alive while sharing multimedia content for entire weekend straight. Speaking from experience once again, Nano levels with festival goers, “Nobody wants to be stuck at a wall (if you can find one) charging their device and lugging around a charger. With the 1UP, you can charge your phone in the middle of the crowd.” Nano suggests that the typical rechargeable phone battery is extremely bulky and cumbersome in one’s pocket, while 1UP batteries are less than half the size of the user’s phone itself. Instead, you can toss 1UP chargers after use. Although not exactly an unheard of product, several companies do currently offer disposable phone chargers, Nano’s format takes 1UP to the front lines where people who need the product most conjure.

“I think everyone should have a 1UP with them because you never know how your will night go,” says Nano, suggesting that the unpredictable nature of nightlife surely warrants having a handful of these tiny batteries in one’s pocket. 1UP provides a one-time shot of power to your smart phone (35% to be exact) and is available for both Android and iPhone smartphones.

I currently have a huge bag of AA batteries sitting under my desk. I’m a photographer, and when not using rechargeable batteries, I eat up a pack each and every weekend for my flash. Although once and a while I’ll throw a dead one into the garbage at work or at home, I choose to dispose of them in bulk at the appropriate disposal locations. 1UP suggest that tactic too, recommending to find a drop-off location nearby. Nano implores that if 1UP did have an installation at a live music event, that environment-conscious event goers could recycle batteries at the point of purchase. Learn more HERE.

Feature image by Visualbass ~ Bud Light Digital Dreams Festival

About The Author

Kurtis Hooper

Chief Content Officer

Kurtis' first love, photography, served as a gateway into the refreshing discovery of dance music. Making a leap from the world of film to club life introduced him to the rich subculture associated with all dance music. Kurtis has interviewed Zedd, Martin Garrix and other globe-travelling musicians along his path as a former editor of DJ Mag's Canadian franchise, to becoming an admin and owner of Toronto Rave Community.

Queen Street’s All-Night Rave Gains Official Nuit Blanche Status

Stemming from its roots as a Facebook group in 2012, TRC brings Toronto-area electronic music fans together as one community. The platform is an extension of this mission, providing a fully-integrated and unified ecosystem for electronic music fans to connect, and be the trusted source for local talent, events, and global music news through community-driven editorial and podcasting.